In a complaint filed February the 14th in the Eastern District of Louisiana, 9 plaintiffs, including a grandmother, a mother of four, three transgender women, and a man, allege the statute to be unconstitutional on equal protection grounds and because the statute amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

SCAN criminalizes the solicitation of oral or anal sex for money, despite the existence of a prostitution law that covers the same conduct. While penalties for first convictions are the same for both laws, SCAN requires second and subsequent offenders to register as sex offenders from 15 years to life. 75 percent of people convicted of a crime against nature in Orleans Parish are women, and 79 percent are black. 38 percent of those on the Orleans Parish registry are registered for a SCAN conviction. SCAN is the only registerable crime that does not involve force or the victimization of children. For more information, see WWAV’s policy brief.